Thursday, October 12, 2006

Short note

What a great Wednesday it was. The weather was fantastic. Seems we got here a week or two after the peak autumn colors. That's unusual, as the second week in October is normally just about perfect. But we enjoyed a drive up to Arroyo Seco where we had a great visit with a couple of painters busily capturing the mountains above them, but not too busy to talk awhile too.

The evening was spent with friends as we rendezvoused at Eske's brewpub. Entertainment was provided by a small ensemble. And after a delicious Seco Porter, containing the sudden urge to dance an Irish jig was difficult.

I have been unable to mend the software that connects the laptop wirelessly to web. Yesterday while trying to connect to the wireless network in the inn, I somehow transmuted the software to a state of non-functioning. Hence, "live" photos may have to wait until our return to El Paso.

Today we'll probably hit a gallery or two, and catch the annual Taos Art Exhibit. But always there is time for serendipity, making it difficult to not feel you're in the middle of a huge and colorful abstract expressionist painting. It sure beats the hell out of the existing in the middle of the unfolding CNN nightmares of home!

THE BEGINNING IS NEAR

HUH?

You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, "Look at that, you son of a bitch."

— Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14 astronaut, People magazine, 8 April 1974.

"Keep in mind that this planet is no model for rational thought, and that what passes for sanity here is sending chills down the spine of the remainder of the universe." E.T. 101

"An Empire’s power depends on its ability to control the cultural stories and language that shape our collective understanding of our world and our choices as a species. Empire stories induce a kind of cultural trance that conditions us to accept the dominator relations of Empire as just and righteous and to dismiss talk of alternatives as naïve, dangerous, or even sinful." ~ David Korten